Deir Dibwan

Name

The word "Deir" means monastery (church or temple) and the word "dibwan" came from the name of the "divan", or Council. It has also been called Deir Dubwan, where "Dubwan" is a proper name.

Another etymology derives "Dibwan" from the Arab word for "bear", in which case the town name means "Monastery of the Two Bears". That would be a reference to the Biblical story recounted in the Second Book of Kings (2, 23-24) according to which boys teased the Prophet Elisha (accounted a Saint by some Christian Churches) and God punished the boys by having two bears come out of the forest and kill many of them. The area of Deir Dibwan is one of the locations where this is considered to have happened, and thus a logical name for a Christian monastery located there.

History

Et-Tell is a mound located just west of the village.

Potsherds from the Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age II, Hellenistic/Roman, Byzantine, Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk era have been found.

Deir Dibwan have been identified with the Crusader site named Dargebaam, or Dargiboan.

Ottoman era

Potsherds from the early Ottoman era have been found.

In the late Ottoman period, in 1838, the American scholar Edward Robinson described Deir Dibwan as being "tolerably wealthy", and reportedly the producer of great quantities of figs.

The French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village in July 1863, and described it as having five hundred inhabitants, situated on a rocky plateau. The highest point of the plateau was occupied by the remains of an old construction, which people referred to as Ed-Deir (the Monastery). He also note several cisterns dug into the rock, which he assumed dated from antiquity. An Ottoman village list of about 1870 showed that "Der Diwan" had 161 houses and a population of 459, though the population count included only men.

In 1883, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described Deir Diwan as a "large and well-built stone village, standing on flat ground, with a rugged valley to the north and open ground to the south. There are a few scattered olives round the place. The inhabitants are partly Christian."

British Mandate period

In a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, the village, called Dair Dilwan, had a population of 1,382, all Muslims, while in the 1931 census, the village had 384 occupied houses and a population of 1688, still all Muslims.

In 1945 the population was 2,080, all Arabs, while the total land area was 73,332 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 5,052 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land, 10,695 for cereals, while 164 dunams were classified as built-up areas.

1948-1967

In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Deir Dibwan came under Jordanian rule.

1967-present

After the Six-Day War in 1967, Deir Dibwan has been under Military governor.

Migron

According to the Israeli government, Israel's Supreme Court, and the Israeli organisation Peace Now, the land the illegal Israeli settlement of Migron sits on is owned by a number of Palestinian families living in Burqa and Deir Dibwan.

In August 2008 the settler leadership of Migron were to vote on an Israeli Defense Ministry proposal to relocate the unauthorized Migron outpost, possibly to an undeveloped area of a nearby settlement. From the Israeli government-commissioned Sasson Report it was concluded that more than 4 million NIS of public funds were illegally invested in the outpost. On 17 December 2006 the Israeli State responded a petition from the legal owners, Palestinians from Deir Dibwan and Burqa, the Israeli State admitted that there was never any authorisation from any official, granted for its establishment. In addition the Israeli State admitted the outpost stands on private Palestinian land. After Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided to evacuate the unauthorized outpost of Migron the Israeli State Prosecution informed the Israeli High Court of Justice of the decision.

Deir Dibwan Association

The Deir Debwan Association is headquartered in New Jersey, United States. Membership is not limited to any specific clan or tribe. It has representatives from each clan or tribe, as well as refugee groups living in the town. The association serves to provide a link to the town, a source of identity to its members, to increase their members' honor and increase the town's honor as well. This association provides a source of honor for those in the United States and for relatives in the town.